Nanny state: high-flyers call in experts for parenting advice

Kathryn Mewes does not meet bohemian, hippy parents in her line of work. Typically one, or both, of the parents she sees work in the City of London.

"Professionals seek professionals," she says. Originally a nanny, Mewes is now a parenting consultant, advising couples privately on changing their child's behaviour, as well as doing corporate seminars for working parents. Her clients find they are unprepared for the chaos and unpredictability that having a child can entail.

“Parents are getting older, they have been in control their whole lives and been successful. Suddenly a baby turns up and life turns on its head.”

Nicknamed the “Three-Day Nanny” because of her pledge to fix behavioural problems in children under the age of 12 within three days, she is filming a new Channel 4 television series demonstrating her techniques. The role of the parenting consultant – distinct from that of a nanny – has developed, she says, as people are used to buying in expertise, such as personal trainers or, in her case, parenting advice.

Most phone calls she receives are from mothers who are about to return to work and want to improve their baby’s sleeping and eating habits.

For Emma Tasker, a former sales and marketing executive, calling Mewes was less about needing to feel in control than wanting to have a good night's sleep. Not because she had a five-month-old baby but because of her five-year-old son: "I had tried everything and I needed to ask for help."

Within three nights, Mewes’ gentle cajoling persuaded her son to stay in his bed the entire night. In Tasker’s view, £900 (

1,177) was money well spent.

Increasingly, Mewes says she is being paid by companies to give parenting seminars in the workplace.

Louisa Symington-Mills, founder of Cityparents, a group of 9,000 mothers and fathers who work in the City, says some of the talks by parenting experts sell out within 10 minutes. The most recent popular event was on child mental health.

“Our members are busy working parents who may not be able to spend as much time with their children as they would like, and they want to hear from experts who can give clear, practical advice,” she says.

Those topics include education, child wellbeing, and the logistics of being a working parent. “They want useful tried-and-tested tips and strategies that they can hear in their lunch hour. It’s a very efficient approach,” she adds.

Anita Cleare, who delivers seminars at City firms, says there is a business case for an employer paying for parenting advice. "If you're not sleeping at night or worried about your teenager, it can impact productivity. "

Blackstone’s working parents’ network regularly hosts in-house workshops for employees and their partners, including on school selection, sleep habits and time management. These topics were suggested by parents as being particularly stressful and would otherwise take time and focus away from the office.

Even graduates, the private equity firm says, ask prospective employers what support there will be for families.

Cynics might charge that all the employer-funded parenting seminars or coaching in the world make little difference if the work culture is such that employees are incapable of seeing their children because of unrealistic workloads. Cleare, who sees clients one-to-one as well as in groups at work, says occasionally she has told a client that their hours are incompatible with family life. However, she reminds her clients that spending 10 minutes of good time with a child is worth more than three hours if that time is constantly on the phone and checking emails.

She recommends going home and “flopping with the children”, sitting with them on the sofa, for example, watching a television programme together, rather than focusing only on tasks, like homework.

High aspirations

Some of the professionals she encounters are trapped by high aspirations for their kids. “We all have a version in our heads of an ideal child or family. We sometimes struggle with the child we’ve got.”

There is no difference between parenting challenges experienced by a C-suite executive and a junior administrator, however, Cleare says. “You find things behind closed doors – people have illness, disability and death in their private lives, that colleagues never know.”

Debbie Ingham, a chartered psychologist who used to work in leadership development, runs one-to-one sessions for working parents as well as seminars at companies including Deloitte, the professional services firm.

Here, the focus is not on parenting skills but the juggle between home and work. Sharing experiences, she says, helps to normalise the issues and stops people feeling so isolated. She observes that parents are so keen to stop home life leaking into their working life and dent their professional image that they try to gloss over any family problems.

Mothers often report that working for other mothers can be difficult, Ingham says. “There is a belief that I’ve made it work, why can’t you?”

Maternal guilt

The biggest issue, Ingham says, is maternal guilt. One woman worried that her daughter was falling behind on reading because she was not getting home from work in time for them to read together.

“She believed every stay-at-home mum was reading every day at 4pm. We helped challenge those beliefs.”

Men express similar feelings, she says, but they tend to frame it as “conflict” or “tension” between their desire to be a good father and employee.

It tends to be transitions that are the hardest to deal with, she says: returning to work after parental leave, or a child starting school. The teenage years, she adds, have their own special challenges.

Cleare believes many of her clients are bombarded with so much information – parenting manuals, advice on the internet – that they lose their way and so a professional such as herself is there for reassurance.

Georgina Hood, who has a chain of London Montessori schools in Chelsea and Notting Hill, and runs a parenting class, agrees: "We are all our own expert on our own child. Parents have lost their confidence." – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2016